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From Shadowfax

Content Management Systems exist for a variety of reasons. Amongst them:

• To allow non-technical users to author web pages
• To allow multiple editors to work on one system
• To enable consistency of design and layout
• To make money for software houses

Having played with a number of CMSs and seen countless products demonstrated, however, it seems to me that the rush to be a market leader and offer every facility under the sun has led to an approach which panders to the perceived needs of a corporate webmaster (ie workflow, control and consistency) whilst largely neglecting the ease of use and navigability goals of both contributors and site visitors. Most CMSs are bloat-ware. In the case of some notable open-source CMSs (for example Drupal) the level of bloat, confusion and the need to customise presents nearly as many problems as it solves. I have no doubt that in a corporate environment a CMS is an essential tool. What does surprise me is how many CMSs there seem utterly unsuitable for the relatively simple task of building a website!

MediaWiki is not without its problems - the CSS design for example is rather convoluted - however, it is blessed with a degree of simplicity from the editor's perspective which make it an ideal solution for a small site. The navigation elements are more suited to wiki style sites (no surprises there) which leaves user experience firmly in the hand of the editors rather than the CMS.

Top 5 Reasons to use MediaWiki

1. Very easy for editors to create content
2. Learning curve to setting up much easier than most CMSs
3. Relatively easy to skin
4. Open Source (hence free!)
5. Widely adopted

Top 3 Reasons not to use MediaWiki

Of course MediaWiki is not suited to all methods of working and there are some circumstances where another product may be better

1. Simplistic user rights management model. All editors can edit all content.
2. Not designed to allow restricted or private areas
3. Navigation style is clearly wiki. Not easy to make more conventional menu system